Her head is pounding, like she downed a whole bottle of cheap wine to soothe herself to sleep. She can feel the press of rough, scraping stone against her face and hands. Her mouth feels like it’s been filled with rancid, rotting cotton. Her lower back is on fire, and her hips hurt something awful. She doesn’t know where she is, can only vaguely recall enough to know that this is not her bedroom, and then she pries her eyes open. They feel crusted and gross, which means she must have been sleeping, but why would she sleep on the ground? It’s only when she makes out the walls of a cave that things begin to trickle back to her, like dew dripping down a spider's web.

The Therapy Group camping trip. The first night spent on an air mattress in a large tent she shared with Sarah and Donna. Playing spades until Sarah was asleep on her cards. The too-early morning hike up a trail to a bluff. Leaving the group because her dreams had been awful and she couldn’t console herself let alone Daniel . . .

The light. The cave.

God how could she have let herself fall into the bad horror movie damsel role and walked into a mystery cave alone?

“Nice going Astrid. Probably tripped, hit your head and now you’re . . .” trailing off, Astrid stood on shaking legs to turn in a slow circle.

There was no entrance to the cave. There was no cave. Now, she stood in a cavern that was lit from within by some unseen light, a faintly orange glow that seemed to come from within the walls themselves, scattered in large deposits. If the walls weren't so solid, she would liken the effect to those DIY cloud lamp ideas she'd seen circulating the web.

A hard clench in her gut, which had nothing to do with the glowing cave wall and everything to do with a slow-building feeling of dread. Because this wasn't normal. And this wasn't a dream. She bounced in place experimentally and a sharp burn of pain from her hips and knees confirmed that no, she was not dreaming. Slowly, Astrid turned in a circle. The cavern walls she’d been facing had simply been a steep but open area about as big as a baseball field. Behind her were three tunnels. They looked like something large and sharp had chipped away at the walls until someone was satisfied with the breath of them.

There was a tunnel that sloped slowly down, a tunnel with a slight incline, and a tunnel that seemed to just go. All of them ended in darkness after maybe twenty-five feet. Astrid paces back and forth in front of them for some time, gaze bouncing between the tunnels, the walls, and her own hands. She’d taken off her pack to see if she still had everything she remembered packing, and there hadn't been some random rainbow doughnut or talking fish with legs, so she was still assuming she wasn't dreaming. The only items in her bag were everything that belonged in her bag.

This amounted to the change of clothes she'd rolled tight at the bottom just in case — Bram had told them there was some sort of river at the top of the bluff and the gleam in Chris’s eye had made her weary enough to be paranoid — extra tampons, a change of underwear also just in case. She had her wind up flashlight, the small assortment of energy bars, the extra water and packs of electrolyte mix. Donna’s special home-mixed trail snacks, a sketchbook and pencil case, the solar charger she’d taken to bringing with her after the picnic where they got stranded and all their phones died. Her actual big water bottle flask, still mostly full because she's been busy helping Sarah re-braided her hair when they took their first break.

All of it there, all of it accounted for. Though—

For some reason her iPad and charger were tucked in the back pocket, and she had only brought the stupid thing because leaving it at home had been too tempting. She hadn't opened it up or even charged it since —

Nope. Not the time or place.

Redirecting herself, Astrid took several deep breaths and turned sharply to the tunnels. The one that sloped down was out right away. She couldn't take the risk of ending up underground, even if the direction of it eventually changed.

Especially when she wasn't even sure how she got in the cavern to begin with. She knows she was in a cave. That hadn't — that hadn't been her imagination. Unless she's finally suffering a psychotic break . . . That was, unfortunately, a very good possibility. But she couldn't think of anything that had occurred recently that might be responsible for that. Not even the dreams, as awful as they were, had yet accomplished that. But —

But if she had? Maybe the cavern wasn't actually real. Maybe this was all in her head.

“God it would be my luck to actually be standing, probably lost, in the middle of the woods and thinking I’m stranded in a cavern inside a . . . Mountain? Probably because those antidepressants actually aren't doing anything.”

There was no response. No sound but the faint echo of her whispered words and her own sharp breathing. Shaking herself, Astrid adjusted her straps and tried to think like — a map splayed before them, cities and landmarks circles in red, her voice a soft croon, promises dripping through her lips like oozing honey —

Nope—

Donna! Donna had been an Army Ranger at some point, she thinks. Or her husband had been? Either way she's had enough conversations with the woman that she mostly thinks she knows what to do. She spent several minutes dithering between the two tunnels, barely breathing as she listened. The faintest stirring in the air from the tunnel with the incline gave her the answer. She wasn't an expert on survival or even hiking, but Donna had given them a mini lecture on the bus they’d taken to the camping grounds.

If you found yourself lost or stranded inside a ravine, cave, or range, get to high ground. If you were in a cave, try to determine where a draft was coming from and follow that. It was the best Astrid could do so she did it. It took a long time.

Longer than she thinks it should have. If she's actually fallen into a cavern from the cave in the bluff — but if this was all a hallucination of some kind would it matter? She wasn't sure. All she knows is that her feet ache and her bones hurt when she finally reached an end to the winding, upward slope. It's unfortunately another cavern.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Fortunately, however, there's a group of people huddled at the center of it, faintly highlighted by a large deposit of those glowing rocks directly beneath them all.

“Excuse me?” She calls, soft but just loud enough.

It still echoes more than she expected. Several of them turn quickly, startled, while several more are much slower to turn. She can only make out some features, but she makes out enough to give pause as she hurries near.

“I'm sorry to bother you but I think I fell down a . . .”

The shortest and closest of the group, who takes a step near, seems feminine in the faint light and darkness. A sharp face. Warm, honey-toned skin. A bald head. And if Astrid isn't mistaken, a third eye blinked at her from their forehead. It was milky white, while the two eyes below it were gleaming dark.

They opened their mouth and a lyrical, nowhere language sang from their lips. It wasn't a language she was familiar with, nor had she ever heard of anything like it.

“What?” Astrid whispers.

Someone else steps forward, also faintly feminine shaped, though this one looked like half her body-weight was muscle. Astrid was positive there were in fact boobs on her chest, which was very easy to establish as she wore what could only be described as a flight suit of some kind, although it was fitted tight to her body. In was possibly a blue or green color, which contrasted nicely with her skin. Her skin seemed golden-bronze in the dim light, darkly slanted eyes intent as she said . . .

Something. Rough but husky words that were in fact very pretty, but entirely nonsensical to Astrid's mind.

A third person stepped forward, and this one was distinctly masculine. He was also built like a small mountain, had a short, wiry looking beard that . . . Glimmered and glinted in the light from below. His sharply pointed ears twitched in a way much like a cats, bumps along his brow that might have been actual horns barely moving when his nose crinkled at her. He breathed smoke when he grunted something guttural and harsh.

“I’m definitely having a psychotic break.”

Astrid laughed, short and humorless. And then she was sitting down abruptly, staring wide-eyed at all of them. The cluster of . . . Individuals — that had probably been conjured by her mind — clustered further in her direction, and there were so many familiar-but-wrong shapes. In the grand scheme of things, at least none of her new imaginary friends were trying to eat her. But still there was something, when she looked at them, that made her want to scream and run away.

A deep, echoing voice rang through the cavern, and Astrid abruptly found herself on her feet, having been pulled there by the two feminine looking individuals that had first tried speaking to her. Looking around wildly while simultaneously staring at the very solid hand on her left bicep was — that felt so very real — was difficult but she managed. One of the walls flickered, and then a face was there.

It almost reminded her of those grainy projector lectures from high school, but not, because none of her teachers' slides had looked like they were composed of highly compressed diamond dust. Also, none of her teachers had ever looked like that.

They might have been male, if she was pressed to make that kind of distinction. It was in the way their jaw was shaped — but she was probably wrong. It was hard to tell, after all, when their skin looked like fresh clay smeared with a hundred different glazes in the same overlapping shades of moss green and tree bark-brown. Their face was narrow and long below what might have been their brows, then both flattened and widened above that line. Two wide, large eyes stared blankly back at them. Two much smaller eyes resided in the hollows of their cheeks. On top of their head was a flat, gleaming, multifaceted gem the color of sea foam but so crystalline clear she could see the fine veins that might have, in fact, been its brain.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” the words sound as numb as she feels.

The monologue of echoing sound she hadn't been able to understand cut off abruptly, and she felt more than saw the creature's attention land on her. It says something else. Astrid decides that she's definitely suffering a mental break, because this is the same kind of crap you see in movies or read in books. It doesn't happen in real life.

Not to people like Astrid, who are more interested in making it to their next therapy session than the fate of the world, universe, or galaxy.

“I really hope I'm not actually standing in the middle of a fucking road or — or a bear cave or something. That would suck,” she croaks, mouth dry and throat itchy.

The three-eyed person says something soft and lyrical. The woman made of muscle replies, in a much rougher tone. Astrid wonders what her brains explanation for them communicating is, when they’re clearly speaking two different languages. An echoing question that originated from the projected face on the wall.

The muscle woman moves then, slipping a bag Astrid hadn't even noticed off her shoulders. There's also, she's stunned to realize, a weapon of some kind strapped across her chest. It could have been a very simple gun or a complicated sword, Astrid isn't sure. It was all sleek lines and high-tech looking though. Definitely something out of a sci-fi movie.

Muscle woman looks up then, says something in that rough-husky voice. Astrid could only shake her head in bafflement. The woman straightens, takes a step forward, and her expression twists into something that might have been apology. She says something else, and then —

Large hands suddenly grab her, and her head is yanked down, and even though she struggles and screams, her wild thrashing is about as effective a baby deer fighting a full-grown mountain lion. Someone carefully pulls at her hair, seemingly parting it precisely. A sharp, sharp pain shoots through her head.

Astrid drops to the floor, stunned. She tried to lift her head buts it feels like someone just took a machete to it. A figure crouches in front of her. She tries to lift her head again — is overcome with a feeling of weightlessness, her whole body suddenly numb.

Astrid goes to sleep.

She wakes what feels like an age later, her head pillowed in someone's lap. When she opens her eyes, it's not Donna looking down at her, worried. There is no Sarah hovering. No Daniel panicking in the background and being reassured by Tucker, no Chris enthusiastically suggesting something wild.

The woman looking down at her has skin the exact same shade as gleaming, metallic bronze, slanted dark eyes, a slightly wide nose, and sharp brows. Her hair is cropped short, but distinctly wavy, and with a vaguely metallic shine to it. She's lit, not by dim light, but by some bright white light Astrid doesn't know the source of.

“Back with us Tiny?”

The words are husky. Velvety. And totally understandable.

“Oh fuck,” Astrid whispers, heart sinking.

“I’d say that's a yes,” someone else coos, voice a soft, musical one.

Astrid doesn't turn her head.

“I’ve finally lost it, haven't I?” She asks.

The frown on the woman above her is all too real.

“Lost what?”

It's said with such genuine confusion that Astrid feels like crying. Because mental breaks wouldn't be so complicated if they were easy to trip up. And Astrid was definitely experiencing one.

"Fuck."